Each startup founder has to deal with the same problem: How do you manage your equity plans and cap table in a transparent and easy way? Carta is an equity management software that you may be using if your company is based in the U.S. If you are not located in the U.S. however, there aren't many options.
Ledgy aims to be the global ownership management tool. Ledgy is used by many well-known European startups, including Wefox, Bitpanda and Gorillas.
Sequoia Capital led a $10 million Series-A funding round for the company. Xavier Niel and Harry Stebbings were also part of the round. Front's Mathilde Colin was also involved. Some Ledgys investors, including Paul Sevin, Myke Nf and Creathor Ventures, also invested again.
Yoko Spirig, Ledgy's co-founder, was talking with an entrepreneur years ago. He showed her how he managed ownership. He opened Excel and scrolled down, scrolled up, scrolled. Each line represented one share. She explained to me how error-prone it was.
Although the implementation was a bit strange, most European companies still use Excel spreadsheets to manage their ownership. Ledgy hopes to convince these companies that switching to software that is specifically designed to address this problem could prove to be beneficial.
It has been crucial to concentrate on the software infrastructure. Spirig explained that what we do is to implement automation workflows that can be adapted depending on the country. She said that we weren't focusing on any one regulation, but were offering the infrastructure layer.
Ledgy supports 32 countries already. The product has been tailored to be more useful for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Startups based in France and the U.K. will soon see more country-specific releases. Ledgy is used by 1,500 companies right now.
There are three major advantages to switching to Ledgy. First, like other software-as-a-service products, Ledgy acts as a single source of truth for all stakeholders the HR team, the finance team, investors, lawyers and employees.
Another selling point is the ability to automate even the most tedious tasks. Ledgy, for instance, can generate documents automatically based on different variables and templates. Ledgy stores signed documents. For compliance reasons, you can export data each quarter or every calendar year.
It fosters transparency within the company. Employees can see the potential value of their options. If the leadership team is currently raising funding, employees can check the value of their options.
Ledgy is expanding into new markets with today's funding round. Ledgy also plans to offer support to public companies, so that existing customers can go public while still using Ledgy.
